How we made pop out of jam

BACK in 2002, The Datsuns’ eponymous debut album bridged the gap between garage and classic rock as the hyped New Zealanders found themselves on the annual NME tour bill and appearing at festivals across the globe.

BACK in 2002, The Datsuns’ eponymous debut album bridged the gap between garage and classic rock as the hyped New Zealanders found themselves on the annual NME tour bill and appearing at festivals across the globe.

Subsequent releases failed to generate the same enthusiasm, although October’s fourth album, Headstunts, has witnessed something of a comeback for the quartet.

“We got a new member of the band on drums, Ben, so it was like making our first record again, with new influences and new abilities,” reckons vocalist and guitarist Dolf de Borst, who has since relocated from NZ to London and now Sweden.

“With a new person, we were able to feed off each other in different ways, and also revive some old ideas that did not click before.”

The material for Headstunts – an anagram of The Datsuns – came together during extended jam sessions. Surprisingly, the move resulted in what the band believe is a poppier collection.

“When we started making this album we played a lot together, and we were doing long, drawn-out songs, but we ended up making a power pop record,” says Dolf, who’ll be with the band at Birmingham’s Barfly tomorrow. “It’s a lot more pop than anything else we’ve done, but it still sounds heavy.

“It began as a series of meandering instrumental jams but the songs got shorter and shorter.

“We like messing around in the studio with long playing but that punk rock thing naturally comes to the fore. We’ve got short attention spans. Are we a jam band in punk clothing or vice versa? I’m not sure.”

Influences range from classic stadium rock (The Who), garage (Rocket From The Crypt), grunge (Dinosaur Jr), boogie (Status Quo) and power pop rock (Cheap Trick), which, as Dolf says, can confuse listeners: “We’re just a rock ’n’ roll band playing music the way we want to do it. It can be too light for people into heavy metal, and too heavy for people into straight garage – we purposefully make it so it doesn’t fit into one place.

“Prog, punk, rock – I like them all. I don’t see them as conflicting.”